Here it is. For your viewing pleasure, the most anticipated video game movie of 2013.

This won’t take long. Slender Man is a steaming pile of hot garbage masquerading as a half-hearted cash grab to capitalise on a meme from half a decade ago. It features a cast of twenty-somethings poorly acting as teenagers who are attempting to save their friend from a creepypasta and DeviantArt mascot.

Imagine every boring, paint-by-numbers, creatively-bankrupt “horror” film you’ve ever seen and watch them again. Better that than spending your hard earned cash on this cynical monstrosity. It’s just more of the same trash. Six seconds of silence followed by a quick cut/motion and a cacophonous sound cue. You see every “scare” coming so far ahead that you have time to plan your toilet breaks around them. I feel like I repeat myself every time I review a horror film but I’ll say it again for the people in the back:

Being. Startled. Is. Not. The Same. As. Being. Scared.

It’s very apparent that they kept this movie to 90 minutes just so they could smuggle it into cinemas as ‘technically feature length’. With a short runtime, they can squeeze more showings in per day and leech as much money from innocent PG-13 moviegoers before word gets out that it’s a cinematic tumour that needs exterminating.

As for Slender Man himself, I mean I suppose he looks fine. He’s mostly “hidden” in fog and distance until the end where he’s pathetically exposed and looks laughable. In a world bursting with suited men who legitimately scare me, being tall and standing in the woods doesn’t cut it anymore.

Oh and if you’re wondering if I’m exaggerating how predictable this movie is, let it be known that I literally wrote this review an hour before I watched the film.